


dna.

by ansutazu



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: HMM NOT SURE WHAT TO TAG I M SLEEPY, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 12:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ansutazu/pseuds/ansutazu
Summary: because all of this is not coincidence, because we’ve found our destiny. // keichi soulmate au. one-shot.





	dna.

**Author's Note:**

> i never really looked at the lyrics for dna until i watched a live performance from bts with lyrics on and i......thought of this........
> 
> THIS IS. REALLY REALLY QUICKLY WRITTEN LIKE. an hour, basically, so it isn't that good and it's really rushed,,, but i wanted to write a one-shot of it first. i really wanna expand on this more someday. hopefully. it'd be a neat story to do. waves hands i might delete this in a couple of days actually BUT. RELEASES TO THE WORLD IN HOPES THAT IT'S A LITTLE COMPREHENSIBLE FOR EVEN JUST A LITTLE BIT.
> 
> it's 12am and i have school tomorrow

“It hurts…”

The boy was curled up in a ball in his bed, clutching his knees close to his chest as each pang of pain courses through his body, the whole sensation starting from head to toe, but especially when it coursed through his heart; he felt like that organ was burning up, grasping for life it could not reach, his breathing short and sporadic as his green hair falls in front of his eyes, desperately grasping for whatever air his hurting body could take in.

It was always like this, those feelings of discomfort striking when he least expects it. His parents feared that he’d acquired a life-threatening illness, but it turns out to be the other way around — it was his _soulmate_ who had it.

The way the world worked was strange. Soulmates were connected by a curious strain of the red string of fate, a fate that spreads pain across both bodies. If one of the pair experiences it, the other one feels it; it’s an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. An illness that pains its victim runs only in that person’s blood, and not within their other half, but it can surely feel like they share the same DNA.

There’s also something curious with this phenomenon. Once the pain had subsided, Keito checks the small watch that he pulls from his pocket, staring at the number that had once again extended.

What had once been three minutes had now become six months, tentatively.

The numbers were when their soulmates were due to die — a morbid concept, but it had been established long before he was born, and he’d come to accept it. It enables to keep their romances as lively as possible, living life to the fullest once their other half had been found (and many have roamed the ends of the earth, perhaps flicking their own forehead or pinching their cheeks to see if the person they think their soulmate it can feel the same sharp pain). The timer lets people live their lives with no regrets, for better or worse.

But while most people’s timers are stable, that was not the case of Keito. His would sporadically change, sometimes out of nowhere, but most of the time it was after his soulmate had endured through their shared pain. The time would countdown, and then say something far off into the future. His soulmate’s life was always in danger, it seemed, and used the watch as a way to stow away in his room if it started to decrease, knowing he was in for another attack.

It was a painful process, but he wonders — what type of person was his soulmate that, through the workings of fate, he would undergo the most painful things for and with him?

He was certainly a lot more interesting than any manga protagonist.

* * *

“Fufu, Keito-kun…~ Let’s work together today, too.”

The newly appointed vice president and president of Yumenosaki’s student council sat side by side at the table, a week or so into the job after the previous students who held the position left due to untold reasons. It was a job that the wealthy yet extremely childish Eichi Tenshouin took over easily, what with his position as the heir to the Tenshouin business; Keito, on the other hand, had it given to him due to his classmates telling him to do so, saying that he was far more reasonable and responsible than any of them, and that he’d do a good job.

And so here they were, reading paperwork and tolling away, this tedious yet required work never finishing itself if they didn’t sit down and work through it all.

“Keito-kun — we’ve known each other for just a little bit, haven’t we? Isn’t that a bit too casual?”

Keito looks over at the blonde, who turned to him with a smile. It was angelic, a bright and glowing grin, and it made his heart pause for a second, the world seeming to glitter from the corner of his eyes. It was a strange yet heavenly power that Eichi possessed, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it. (Distractions, however, were out of the question until all the work was done.)

“Oh? Then what should I call you…ah, how about Keito?” The blonde chuckles, placing another paper onto the pile.

“That’s — oi, saying that freely, are you really okay with that?” Keito’s cheeks grow a slight pink, to which the blonde laughs a little louder this time, the sound resembling that of the ringing of heaven’s bells — hey, what did he just say about distractions? “No, _you_ should be asking me that. To just go to my first name — ”

“We’ll be working together for the next two years, though. Wouldn’t it be better to be comfortable with each other right off the bat, so that we can converse more casually?” Eichi’s smile radiates some sort of warmth, and Keito’s _definitely_ drawn to it now, falling through whatever guards he’d put up just now in an instant. “It’d be good if we could do so. I don’t mind if you just call me ‘Eichi’ — so then, let’s get along, _Keito_.”

* * *

It should’ve been just a regular day at the student council, Keito trying to repress the heart that threatened to betray his feelings for Eichi at any minute. Though he found the student council president to be stubborn, an extreme handful…somehow he’d fallen for him over the last few months, and he wondered if maybe, just maybe, that boy was his soulmate.

But while he did experience the usual pains even through this day, he wasn’t eager to test it out with Eichi around. For one, he didn’t want to see Eichi not reacting to anything, thus betraying any signs of getting together; and for another thing, he just…couldn’t bear to do harm, even if it’s through that weird red string of fate. Sometimes Eichi looked deathly pale, or he looked tired, to which Keito scolded him (but to be fair, Eichi would scold him, too, for overworking). To do something like that, and to be underhandedly rejected — no, he didn’t want to find out just yet.

But today the student council president was no where to be found, and the watch had been ticking down ominously, having moved from three months to five minutes in a span of a second. Keito was ready to brace himself for the upcoming pain, but upon seeing that Eichi wasn’t around, he got worried.

He ran out of the student council room, his first move being to check the halls for any sign of the blonde, all while the clock was ticking down. It hit four minutes, three minutes, two, one — and then it switched to seconds, fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven…

He was starting to feel pain, a weird tingling sensation reaching his fingertips as he winds up in front of his classroom, the very same classroom he shared with Eichi. He walks in, a little dizzy, singling out Eichi’s desk quickly, its user still in it, heaving heavily.

“Eichi — ”

The clock hit zero, and he sank to the ground.

Eichi let out a pained yell, clutching his stomach with one hand and gripping the edge of his desk with another. Keito was on his knees, hunched over and biting his lip to keep from letting out any noise, the pain coursing through his body just like any other time, something so cruelly practiced.

But, if they felt it at the same time, then doesn’t that mean — ?

* * *

“Sorry I put you through that.”

The sun had dipped a long time ago in the horizon, leaving a starry sky as the background for their tryst. They were both a little sweaty, their uniform shirts clinging to their skin, sorting out the last bits of the day’s student council work.

“It’s okay — it’s a given with all this…soulmate stuff, but it does hurt a lot.”

Keito looks up from his shuffling to stare at Eichi’s figure for a bit, mesmerized by how an angel could be plagued with a disease that threatened to end his life at any second. So _that_ was why his clock kept resetting, _that_ was why he felt immense pain — it was because he was sharing the same pain as Eichi when he went through an attack, and he had thankfully survived the one that happened that afternoon, which had been a minor one, according to Eichi, not enough to merit the need to go to the hospital. If it had been a little longer, he said, they both probably would’ve been needed to be rushed out.

“So you admit that it _hurts_.” Eichi faces Keito with blue eyes piercing straight through him, looking a little displeased. “It’s quite unfortunate that you’re stuck with me, then. You’ll just have to end up being in pain, over and over again, with no idea when I’ll die because even death seems to not want me. I — ”

It was an unconscious action, Keito’s hand reaching across the table and holding onto Eichi’s, as if those intertwined fingers had known its place all this time. It was sudden, and something he never thought he’d do, the action to embarrassing to further describe. The vice president, so confused yet so sure about this, opened his mouth to speak.

“That red string of fate wouldn’t have tied me to you if they thought I couldn’t handle it. It’s saying that I _can_ — I have for years, you know. Since I was a kid, I found it fascinating that the person that I’d be with could be put through so much pain, yet somehow live on. It’s a crazy story, isn’t it? And then I finally met you, and I was right — you _were_ interesting. That’s why…thats why, don’t say that it’s unfortunate. For me, it’s a good thing that now at least I have some confirmation. I’ll endure it — we’ll both endure it, won’t we? Because it’s what we have to do. It’ll hurt for the both of us, we don’t know how much time’s left, but doesn’t that make it interesting? You’re a childish brat, but somehow…I wouldn’t mind doing all of that for you.”

“Wow, my heart’s seriously racing…is that a love confession, Keito?”

“I didn’t exactly say those words, but — I do love you, Eichi.”

Eichi’s other hand is placed on top of Keito’s, and he smiles.

“Of course, I love you, too.”


End file.
